The Final Whinge

Nothing particularly ground breaking happened today in my lectures, although I did actually find some of the "motivational" stuff about getting on with the major design project quite inspiring and I've been working for most of the day getting on with brainstorming.
I'm doing it on my own at the moment, but I'm not feeling too good about it. I'm worried that everyone else has got into good groups and has started the brain storming already, whereas I only have 1 person so far! I'm thinking about trying to nudge in with another guy, but his group seems pretty full :S
I'm just panicking I'm sure, but still, it's an unsettling feeling.

Today we were all piled into the Art Shop for a bit of a rugby scrum to the logbooks* and everyone was diving for the A3 ones. I went straight for the A4 ones, and for some reason totally freaked out that I was the only one going for those ones, and immediately started to doubt myself and think everyone else was in on something and was making a better choice than me. I'm not normally like that - I tend to do what I want and ignore other people...except in design.

I'm incredibly insecure about my design abilities. At school I was a very big fish in a minute pool, so coming to Loughborough (which is generally considered one of the best for Industrial Design) was a bit of a shock to my little 18 year old self, and I've still not really come to terms with it.

I'm convinced I'm rubbish at it and I totally lack any confidence in myself. Now this poses a problem - designers are supposed to believe in themselves and their work - how else do you sell your work and make money if you don't even believe it?

So I've come up with a pretty good front, the same one I use to pretend I'm an outgoing person, but still get caught out every now and then - and I always feel really embarrassed, like I've exposed myself in public.
I guess that comes from the way I am in general about others knowing about the deeper darker parts of my life, I'm actually quite a secretive person. The outgoing "front" will reveal many trivial facts, but the reality never surfaces to many people.

Right, must stop whinging - from now on, upbeat posts only!

* Designers use logbooks to record all work, ideas and conversations etc, to prevent law suits, plagerism and to claim ownership of ideas. At the beginning of every new project you start a new logbook, hence the dash to the art shop!